Namco Museum Mini Player is a tabletop arcade machine and game compilation released by My Arcade in 2019.
Overview[]
The Namco Museum Mini Player bases its design on My Arcade's "Micro Player" tabletops, though is considerably larger in size. The machine features a light-up marquee featuring the Namco Museum logo; the screen bezel uses artwork from the original Pac-Man machine, while the side artwork showcases several of the included games.
Games[]
The Namco Museum Mini Player includes the following titles:
- Pac-Man (1980)
- Pac-Mania (1987) (North American version)
- Pac-Panic (1993) (Sega Mega Drive version, PAL speed)
- Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures (1994) (Sega Genesis version)
- Galaxian (1979)
- Galaga (1981)
- Dig Dug (1982)
- Xevious (1982)
- Mappy (1983)
- The Tower of Druaga (1984)
- Dig Dug II (1985)
- Sky Kid (1985)
- Battle City (1985) (Nintendo Vs. version)
- Rolling Thunder (1986)
- Dragon Spirit (1987)
- Splatterhouse (1988)
- Phelios (1989)
- Rolling Thunder 2 (1991)
- Splatterhouse 2 (1992) (Sega Genesis version)
- Rolling Thunder 3 (1993) (Sega Genesis version)
Unlike the majority of other My Arcade devices, the Namco Museum unit uses the original arcade versions of most included games, alongside a handful of Sega Mega Drive/Genesis titles. All included games have their copyright notices removed; any splash screens or boot-up sequences appear to be masked behind a screen explaining the selected game's controls.
The machine uses a 16:9 monitor in vertical resolution. Each game can be cropped to its original aspect ratio, or can be stretched to fit the full display (the latter looking quite awkward in horizontal-resolution titles).
Trivia[]
- The Namco Museum Mini Player was preceded by the Data East Classics Mini Player, a similar tabletop machine with 34 built-in games. However, the "Mini Player" line was ultimately dropped following these two machines.
- In terms of hardware, the Mini Player(s) run off of PCBs repurposed from Android tablets (specifically a model manufactured by Denver Electronics). The machine is set to autoboot into an APK file of the system menu; in actuality, this is a bootlegged version of MAME4droid with a customized menu system.[1] By plugging certain cables and peripherals into the machine, it is possible for the user to access internet functionality and install their own APK files to the device.[1][2]
- For unknown reasons, Pac-Mania's music plays with its percussion considerably lowered in volume; this is most noticeable in Block Town.
- Pac-Panic runs at PAL speed, likely from the emulator auto-detecting the ROM as being the European version of the game. While this is technically accurate performance, the Pac-Man Pocket Player console (also from My Arcade) runs the same version at NTSC speed.
- Pac-Man is technically included twice on the Mini Player; as it contains the arcade port, as well as the Genesis port via Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures.